“Caterina! Caterina, where are you?”
Rocco burst into the penthouse, his voice echoing in the empty rooms.
But the only reply was a dead, suffocating silence.
In the living room, the black leather sofa they had picked out together was still in its place, but it no longer held Caterina’s
warm scent.
The coffee table was bare. The little moon–shaped night light she loved was gone.
“Impossible… She has to be here…”
He tore into the bedroom.
The closet doors were
All of Caterina’s drone ones he loved to
see her in–had vanished.
open, revealing only his clothes hanging forlornly inside.
The vanity was wiped clean, not a single bottle of perfume left behind.
“Caterina!” he screamed, his voice turning raw.
But there was no trace of her left in the entire penthouse.
It was as if she had never lived there at all.
Rocco stumbled back into the living room and sank to his knees in despair.
Suddenly, he saw something in the trash can.
It was a candle, burned all the way down, and a small white card.
1
With trembling hands, he picked up the card. On it was Caterina’s familiar handwriting:
“Rocco, I hope you find your peace in a world without me.” -Caterina
Beneath it was a date. Their anniversary.
It meant that on the night he had chosen Scarlett, Caterina had been here. Alone. Spending their last anniversary by herself.
A raw, agonized howl ripped from his chest, a torrent of pain and despair.
The sound tore through the night sky, filled with regret and desperation.
“Rocco?”
